


The importance of being Andrew

by Naraht



Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: 1930s, Education, Family Drama, Gen, Orphans, POV Outsider, Pacifism, Pre-Canon, Teen Angst, Unreliable Narrator, interwar suburbia, quaker character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-31
Updated: 2013-03-31
Packaged: 2017-12-07 03:10:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/743501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naraht/pseuds/Naraht
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Andrew went to live with his aunt and uncle, he was just at that awkward age.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The importance of being Andrew

He was just at that awkward age when he came to us.

I remember my first sight of him, waiting there on the railway platform with his bags and steamer trunk. He would have seemed like a boy on his way home from school were it not for the look on his face. His wavy fair hair had been left uncut for too long; his fringe fell down into his face, and he looked at me from under it with a set, stubborn expression.

"Look, Mummy," said my daughter Olivia. "He's just like Paddington Bear."

Naturally we never would have refused to take in Bertie's son. Simple Christian charity demanded that much from us. Beyond this we had some idea that it would be good to have a boy in the family. My husband had always longed for a son, but after my difficult final confinement we had agreed not to have more children. Now Andrew would become the eldest in the house alongside our three young daughters.

Looking back, I realise that I had envisioned Andrew as a boy of eleven or twelve, barely older than my girls, for that was the age he had been when I had seen him last. I had imagined that his gratefulness and our generosity would make him soon one of our own. But the boy on the platform was fifteen, already a head taller than me, with his shirtsleeves showing his tanned wrists. I made a mental note to add new clothes to the list of expenses attendant upon a new member of the household, food and school fees and all the rest of it. (His grandmother had left him very little, not of course that this made any difference to our welcome.)

"Andrew, my dear," I said, and embraced him. "How was your trip?"

"It was very long," he said simply.

He was equally quiet at dinner that night. He could no doubt have eaten twice the portion that he had been served; though he said nothing, I could see his longing looks at the remainder of the joint, which I had intended for sandwiches on the following day. He sat awkwardly in his chair, making the wood creak, as though he didn't quite know what to do with his long limbs. I don't recall whether it was that night or one of the following ones when he upset the custard all over the tablecloth. He could not have been more apologetic but he insisted upon mopping it up himself, while the maid stood by unoccupied.

"Boys can be like that," said my husband to me, that night in bed. "You can't compare him to our three."

"He seems so shy," I objected, trying to keep my voice down. Andrew was in the bedroom next door, the one that had been Olivia's. "Doesn't he realise that we're his family? His only family, now. Can't he tell that we care about him?"

"I don't suppose that mother, God rest her soul, knew much about raising a boy. He needs sending to a proper school. Being with boys his own age will do him no end of good."

It was July when he came to us. We set ourselves to combing through the pages of schools guides but there were still the summer holidays to be got through in any case.

If I had worried that Andrew would be underfoot in the house, I needn't have. During those long summer days we hardly saw him. He would go out walking and come home, dusty and footsore, only in time for dinner. After dinner he would go up to his room to read, and stay there until bedtime.

Occasionally I would meet him around the house, haunting the hallways like a ghost. He had in those moments a sullenly reproachful, almost pleading look to him, as though he were undergoing some suffering that I could have prevented. I never knew what to say to him; nor he, apparently, to me. We passed one another and went our own ways.

"He ought not to spend so much time in his room," my husband said.

"Would you rather he were all evening in the sitting room with us?"

Already then the division had opened, almost imperceptibly, between Andrew and 'us.'

"Yes," he replied. "It's morbid for a boy of his age to be alone so much. Develops unhealthy habits. Nerves. You can't deny that he's suffering from nerves."

It was baffling to us. My doctor's only recommendation was fresh air and exercise, but Andrew had both in abundance. He slept well and ate better, a sturdy boy of fifteen in apparently perfect health. And yet, when he was with us, all one could feel was the overwhelming sense of his awkward, self-conscious misery.

Only rarely did I see him happy. I was passing by the nursery one morning when I heard, along with my daughters' piping trebles, an unexpected tenor voice. Glancing around the half-closed door, I saw Andrew sitting solemnly cross-legged on the nursery floor with Olivia close by his side. Her soft toys and her Blue Willow tea set were spread out around them.

"Will have you more cake?" Olivia was asking, offering him an empty plate.

"Yes, please." Andrew accepted it with the utmost seriousness, as if he were not at an age where he should have disdained such childish things. "And I think that Eeyore would like some more tea."

"I'll pour," said Olivia happily.

They were utterly absorbed in their make-believe. I suppose I ought to have interrupted but it was such a queer scene that one hardly knew what to think. He held one of Olivia's little teacups with more composure than I had yet seen him muster, but they made his hands seem very large. Andrew, his shoulders too broad for his schoolboy blazer, could not have been more out of place in our quiet, feminine nursery.

Olivia came to me the next day to ask whether Andrew could be invited to her birthday party. We had been planning it for weeks, a tea party for six carefully chosen schoolfriends and their mothers. As one of the girls was the daughter of our local JP, I could be forgiven for looking forward to the event as a bit of a social triumph.

"I don't think he'd enjoy it, dear," I said, as gently as I could.

"I think he would," insisted Olivia. 

My heart sank. It occurred to me that brothers and cousins are not the same thing at all, and that I ought to have thought of it sooner. Fifteen and ten, one could perhaps just consider innocent, but both he and Olivia were growing every day. I wondered what the other mothers would think of our having brought a teenage boy, nearly a stranger to us, into a home with three young daughters.

Needless to say I redoubled my efforts with the schools guides and we racked our brains to think of a place that might suit. It was in August, only a week before Olivia's party, we called Andrew into the sitting room to tell him our decision.

"We've found you a school," said my husband, who never took much time over the preliminaries. "Imperial Service College in Windsor. Good place, two of my cousins went there, and it'll fit you for a career. Since Bertie was an officer, they've given you a scholarship."

It would be wrong to say that money had played no role in our decision. We had, after all, the three girls to educate. In my own childhood a governess would have been considered entirely sufficient, but this was the Thirties and there would be school fees all round. Andrew's grandmother's legacy could not be touched until the boy was of age, and looming behind the question of school was that of university, and his eventual aim in life. We felt that we had dealt rather neatly with all three problems together.

"My father left the Army," said Andrew.

"A fact that they've very kindly agreed to overlook, in light of his war record. You start next month."

"Have you read _Stalky and Co_?" I asked encouragingly. "It's the same school where Kipling went, you know, only they've since moved to Windsor."

I gathered that there had been an intervening bankruptcy or two, but the connection with Kipling was one which the scholastic agent had been keen to impress upon us. I assumed that Andrew would be equally struck by the fact.

"I don't like _Stalky and Co_ , or Kipling," he said. "And I don't believe in the Army. My father didn't. Mother never would have sent me to that school. I won't go."

"We're your guardians," said my husband. "You'll go where we send you."

"I won't," said Andrew, as if that ended the matter. 

The least said about the following days, the better. My husband regretted bitterly that Andrew was too big a boy for the strap. Any punishment that we could sensibly have imposed on him would hardly have been as severe as those he accepted by choice, for Andrew had embarked upon a campaign of passive resistance that would have made Gandhi proud. Several days running he refused to come down to dinner. Poor Olivia was caught twice sneaking provisions to him from the kitchen, and earned the smacking that Andrew was too old to receive. I hoped that it made him just a little ashamed at the way he was carrying on.

My poor husband was beside himself. His brother Bertie's decision to resign his commission had been, sixteen years ago now, a family scandal and the talk of the neighborhood. Bertie's rapid, imprudent marriage and sudden death had only seemed to add insult to injury, removing the possibility that he might ever accept the error of his ways. To have Bertie thrown back in his face by this ungrateful boy was almost more than he could bear.

And yet what could we do? It was impossible that we should put Andrew out on the streets. It was impossible that he should remain at home, for there was no school in the neighborhood suitable for a day boy, even if we had been willing to keep him on that basis. All that remained to us was to stay firm and hope that the spirit of rebellion would burn itself out.

We had every hope that it would. After a few days Andrew began to reappear at meals, silent, unapologetic, rather paler than usual, but very much present.

"He knows very well that if he eats at our table," said my husband, "he has to abide by our rules."

I was not sure that he did know, but I would have done anything to ensure peace between that moment and the fateful day in September, so I nodded and said nothing. Not that different, perhaps, from Andrew.

It was the next day that the letter came:

> Dear Mr. and Mrs. Raynes,
> 
> It is with the greatest regret that I write regarding your nephew, Andrew Raynes. Yesterday I received from him a letter, dated 12 August, in which he laid out his philosophical objections to military service and stated in no uncertain terms his unsuitability for life at the Imperial Service College. Although I do not of course give credence to the philosophical beliefs of a fifteen year old, I have taken the decision to withdraw our offer of a place for the coming year.
> 
> While I recognise that this decision may cause you some difficulty, it was, under the circumstances, the only possible course of action. I hope you will succeed in finding a school more suited to your nephew's character.
> 
> With every good wish,
> 
> John Fanshaw  
>  Headmaster, Imperial Service College

"Damn the boy," said my husband. He muttered something that I had no wish to make out. His neck above the collar was getting very red.

I felt rather faint. It was barely a month until the start of term. "What are we meant to do now?" 

"Leave it to me. I'll have a talk with him. Man to man."

In retrospect I thought that he might have waited until the girls and I were in town. 

The explosion came that very evening. Even after dinner the air was warm. I was sitting out on the patio, Lily drowsing in my lap, Maggie and Olivia playing in the garden. I heard voices through the half-open French doors, in the darkened sitting room. I could not make out the words, only the tone: my husband struggling to keep his temper, Andrew's sulky, truculent replies. I was sorely tempted to get up and listen at the door, but reluctant to wake Lily. When the confrontation became more heated, she started to whimper. I smoothed the curls back from her damp forehead and held my own breath.

"And as for _Catherine_..." said my husband finally, his patience almost gone.

Maggie squealed at the bottom of the garden. 

All I caught of Andrew's reply was "my mother" and "I won't." There was a sudden crash. Andrew stood on the patio, breathing hard, the slammed French door still quivering in its frame behind him. Then he ran for the garden gate.

My husband appeared a moment later, mopping at his brow with his handkerchief.

"That bloody boy! Do you know he nearly raised his hand to me? Damn it to hell."

I put my hands over Lily's ears but his tirade was done. He slumped into the other wicker chair with a sigh. There was no need to ask how the talk had gone, although I could not imagine Andrew raising his hand to anyone.

It was hours later when I went upstairs, wondering whether Andrew had crept back in without our noticing. When I eased open the door of Olivia's old room, I saw him lying curled on his side in bed, still in his clothes, his arms wrapped tightly around a pillow. Seeing him asleep like that, it was easier to think of him as still a child. The window was wide open and there was a smear of mud on the sill; it seemed that he'd climbed up the rose trellis. I laid a quilt over him as gently as I could. He stirred but didn't waken, only pulled the pillow closer.

We didn't sleep nearly so well that night. My husband lay awake, flat on his back, fuming.

"He's not too young to go into the Navy, you know. Boy seaman."

"You wouldn't..."

"I certainly don't mind thinking about it. That boy needs the nonsense knocked out of him."

I sighed, wondering for a moment whether that really was what he needed.

"On a scholarship," my husband added.

This was the crux of the matter. It was not that we were unfeeling; given the state of our bank balance, we could hardly have sent a son of our own to Eton or Harrow. Even if we could have done, I was not at all certain that Andrew would have been happy at one of the great public schools. I wondered if he would be happy anywhere.

On the following Sunday I spoke privately with our Vicar's wife. Everyone in the parish naturally knew that we had taken Andrew in. For weeks I had been basking rather in the praise from friends and neighbors, 'I could never' and 'how good of you,' quietly saying that it was no more than anyone would do while inwardly believing just the opposite. Andrew himself had excited less interest, a sullen boy who mumbled rather when spoken to, and participated in worship only with the greatest reluctance. He could hardly reproach us for this particularly, as we knew full well that his grandmother had brought him to services every Sunday and required him to be confirmed in the Church of England, but one had the impression that he fancied himself a martyr about to be tied up and sacrificed in a heathen temple.

I was ashamed to admit that we were at our wits' end with him already. 

Our Vicar's wife nodded sympathetically, as if she had seen this sort of thing before. "A boy growing up without his father..." 

"He's so self-willed," I said, despairing.

"I suppose he's been used to having his way with things, being the man of the house. It leaves them feeling as if the weight of the world is on their shoulders, poor things. He needs a school where the headmaster understands troublesome boys, without coddling them."

"The problem is finding one."

She nodded again, slid her reading glasses onto her narrow nose. "There's a scholastic agency in London, I don't quite recall the name, but my sister spoke very highly..."

As she searched through her address book, I gazed out the window into the churchyard. Andrew was waiting for me there, holding Lily easily on one hip. Maggie ran up and hugged him round the waist, chattering away as she always did. For almost the first time since he came to us, I saw that Andrew was smiling.

"I worry about the influence on my poor girls," I said.

"As soon as possible," she said.

So keen was I to find the right place for Andrew that I left the vicarage full of resolution, planning to make the rather daunting trip up to London to consult with Gabbitas and Thring. I would write just as soon as Olivia's birthday party was over and done with.

The day of the party dawned clear and warm. We had an extra girl come in to help with the preparations. My husband intended to take Andrew to the tennis club, though the boy was clumsy enough that one could not quite imagine him with racquet in hand.

It was forty minutes to the hour when the front doorbell rang. Far too early. Andrew was still upstairs and none of the cakes had been laid out yet. I went to answer it, patting at my hair. The man on the doorstep had a rather unkempt beard and wore a corduroy blazer which was very worn at the elbows. I wondered whether he were collecting for the unemployed, or whether he was the piano tuner and had simply come to the wrong door in the wrong week.

"I'm Dave," he said simply.

"I'm sorry...?"

"David," he amended. "I was a friend of Bertie, on the Continent. I believe we met at Catherine's funeral. But did Andrew not mention...?"

"Andrew never says anything to us," I replied. "But really, at the moment we're rather..."

My husband came thundering down the stairs. "Whatever you're selling, we don't want any, thank you very much."

He was closely followed by Andrew, who exclaimed: "Dave!"

"I told you I would come," said Dave.

He began once again with an explanation of his unexpected appearance, which I felt was rather needed, but my husband interrupted almost immediately: "I know very well who you are, and I'm telling you that you're not wanted here."

"I haven't come on my own account. Andrew wrote and asked me to speak with you on his behalf."

It was the most embarrassing of conversations, even worse for having been carried on in the front hall. With the sitting room all decorated for Olivia's party I hesitated to invite the man through, and I had the feeling that my husband would not have wanted it in any case. So we stood there while he talked to us about the Society of Friends, the Great War, Bertie's beliefs, nothing that had anything to do with the education of a teenage boy. Andrew leaned over the rail of the landing, his chin on his folded arms, watching with an almost worshipful expression.

"He's already succeeded in having himself blackballed from the Imperial Service College," said my husband. "I hardly think he needs your help. Unless that's your doing too," he added darkly.

"There are several very respectable Friends' public schools," said Dave doggedly. "I've written to the headmaster of Leighton Park, in Reading, and they would be willing to take Andrew on, even at this short notice. It's typically generous of them. It just requires--"

My husband drew himself up to his full height. "I know what you did during the Great War, and I can tell you that I take no advice from White Feather men. I'll show you the door."

He rather bundled him out; I hoped that there was no one looking on. As Dave strode away across the gravel of the drive, Andrew ran after him in his stocking feet. There was a brief _tête-à-tête_ : Dave paused, clasped the boy's shoulder with an almost presumptuous intimacy, said a few words. I wanted to know, and yet I didn't.

After all that it was difficult to enjoy the party. I poured tea and smiled mechanically, brooding on the stranger who had appeared at our door without apology, as if he had some prior claim over Bertie Raynes' boy. My nerves were in a state. It was rather shocking; one hardly knew who might turn up next. It was a relief when all the guests finally left and I could finally think properly about the oddness of the morning.

My husband had given up the idea of going to the tennis club, for we could not be sure that Dave would not return. After the party he joined me in the kitchen, and turned to me while the girl was off clearing the tablecloths.

"There's only one reason a man would take that much interest in a boy," he said darkly.

"Do you...oh, I'm sure that couldn't be true."

It was so beyond the pale that at first I hadn't understood what he meant. Might Andrew really not be Bertie's son after all? Might Bertie, and we, have been deceived by a cuckoo in the nest? True, Andrew didn't run to the dark, slender Raynes type but, from what I recalled, Catherine had been a blonde, rather strapping girl. I shook my head and tried to put the idea out of my mind.

"I always said that Bertie was a bit queer," my husband added.

It could not be said that we failed to do our duty by Andrew. We sent him in the end to a rather progressive school in Devon, recommended by Gabbitas and Thring. It specialised (though we did not tell him this in so many words) in the education of boys who, for one reason or another, were unsuited to life in a typical public school. To our immense surprise, he even seemed to be happy there. We had hoped that his rather faddish ideas would prove to be a phase, eventually discarded in the light of maturity. Perhaps we, or his school, did not do enough to challenge them. 

His decision to go before the Board as a conscientious objector came as a great shock, though it was one for which we should have been prepared. Appeals to his father's memory--for Bertie had, after all, served his country during wartime--did nothing. Appeals to think of his family, our reputation, our feelings, did nothing. Obviously the three years that we had devoted to his welfare meant little to him. We could hardly have been expected to approve.

Since then I have had no more than two or three brief letters from him. He says that he has moved to London to help with the relief efforts there, and is living with Dave in the East End. Perhaps it's for the best, I tell myself. 

We will remain his guardians until he turns twenty-one, legally at least. I ask myself still whether we made some mistake, whether there was anything more we could have done. Our Vicar's wife tells me that I shouldn't worry. No family could have been more generous to such a troubled, difficult child.

And one can hardly expect a boy like Andrew Raynes to be grateful.


End file.
